diff --git a/lib/web-server.js b/lib/web-server.js
index 1f5a7e5de..0588536fd 100644
--- a/lib/web-server.js
+++ b/lib/web-server.js
@@ -36,7 +36,15 @@ var createWebServer = function(injector) {
     filesPromise: ['value', filesPromise]
   }]);
 
+  // TODO(vojta): remove if https://github.com/senchalabs/connect/pull/850 gets merged
+  var compressOptions = {
+    filter: function(req, res){
+      return (/json|text|javascript|dart/).test(res.getHeader('Content-Type'));
+    }
+  };
+
   var handler = connect()
+      .use(connect.compress(compressOptions))
       .use(injector.invoke(karmaMiddleware.create))
       .use(injector.invoke(sourceFilesMiddleware.create))
       // TODO(vojta): extract the proxy into a plugin