diff --git a/django/middleware/gzip.py b/django/middleware/gzip.py
index e9e955d704..8548c083e3 100644
--- a/django/middleware/gzip.py
+++ b/django/middleware/gzip.py
@@ -17,17 +17,11 @@ class GZipMiddleware(object):
         if not response.streaming and len(response.content) < 200:
             return response
 
-        patch_vary_headers(response, ('Accept-Encoding',))
-
         # Avoid gzipping if we've already got a content-encoding.
         if response.has_header('Content-Encoding'):
             return response
 
-        # MSIE have issues with gzipped response of various content types.
-        if "msie" in request.META.get('HTTP_USER_AGENT', '').lower():
-            ctype = response.get('Content-Type', '').lower()
-            if not ctype.startswith("text/") or "javascript" in ctype:
-                return response
+        patch_vary_headers(response, ('Accept-Encoding',))
 
         ae = request.META.get('HTTP_ACCEPT_ENCODING', '')
         if not re_accepts_gzip.search(ae):
diff --git a/docs/ref/middleware.txt b/docs/ref/middleware.txt
index d5958dfebd..7b7b76b567 100644
--- a/docs/ref/middleware.txt
+++ b/docs/ref/middleware.txt
@@ -108,11 +108,6 @@ It will NOT compress content if any of the following are true:
 * The request (the browser) hasn't sent an ``Accept-Encoding`` header
   containing ``gzip``.
 
-* The request is from Internet Explorer and the ``Content-Type`` header
-  contains ``javascript`` or starts with anything other than ``text/``.
-  We do this to avoid a bug in early versions of IE that caused decompression
-  not to be performed on certain content types.
-
 You can apply GZip compression to individual views using the
 :func:`~django.views.decorators.gzip.gzip_page()` decorator.
 
diff --git a/docs/releases/1.8.txt b/docs/releases/1.8.txt
index 774d94d94d..26b9d37a88 100644
--- a/docs/releases/1.8.txt
+++ b/docs/releases/1.8.txt
@@ -273,6 +273,11 @@ Miscellaneous
 * Database connections are considered equal only if they're the same object.
   They aren't hashable any more.
 
+* :class:`~django.middleware.gzip.GZipMiddleware` used to disable compression
+  for some content types when the request is from Internet Explorer, in order
+  to work around a bug in IE6 and earlier. This behavior could affect
+  performance on IE7 and later. It was removed.
+
 * ``URLField.to_python`` no longer adds a trailing slash to pathless URLs.
 
 * ``django.contrib.gis`` dropped support for GEOS 3.1 and GDAL 1.6.
diff --git a/tests/middleware/tests.py b/tests/middleware/tests.py
index 98420501a6..7df1d04418 100644
--- a/tests/middleware/tests.py
+++ b/tests/middleware/tests.py
@@ -613,16 +613,6 @@ class GZipMiddlewareTest(TestCase):
         self.assertEqual(r.content, self.compressible_string)
         self.assertEqual(r.get('Content-Encoding'), 'deflate')
 
-    def test_no_compress_ie_js_requests(self):
-        """
-        Tests that compression isn't performed on JavaScript requests from Internet Explorer.
-        """
-        self.req.META['HTTP_USER_AGENT'] = 'Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.00; Windows 98)'
-        self.resp['Content-Type'] = 'application/javascript; charset=UTF-8'
-        r = GZipMiddleware().process_response(self.req, self.resp)
-        self.assertEqual(r.content, self.compressible_string)
-        self.assertEqual(r.get('Content-Encoding'), None)
-
     def test_no_compress_uncompressible_response(self):
         """
         Tests that compression isn't performed on responses with uncompressible content.