+class YoutubeDLHandler(urllib2.HTTPHandler):
+       """Handler for HTTP requests and responses.
+
+       This class, when installed with an OpenerDirector, automatically adds
+       the standard headers to every HTTP request and handles gzipped and
+       deflated responses from web servers. If compression is to be avoided in
+       a particular request, the original request in the program code only has
+       to include the HTTP header "Youtubedl-No-Compression", which will be
+       removed before making the real request.
+       
+       Part of this code was copied from:
+
+         http://techknack.net/python-urllib2-handlers/
+         
+       Andrew Rowls, the author of that code, agreed to release it to the
+       public domain.
+       """
+
+       @staticmethod
+       def deflate(data):
+               try:
+                       return zlib.decompress(data, -zlib.MAX_WBITS)
+               except zlib.error:
+                       return zlib.decompress(data)
+       
+       @staticmethod
+       def addinfourl_wrapper(stream, headers, url, code):
+               if hasattr(urllib2.addinfourl, 'getcode'):
+                       return urllib2.addinfourl(stream, headers, url, code)
+               ret = urllib2.addinfourl(stream, headers, url)
+               ret.code = code
+               return ret
+       
+       def http_request(self, req):
+               for h in std_headers:
+                       if h in req.headers:
+                               del req.headers[h]
+                       req.add_header(h, std_headers[h])
+               if 'Youtubedl-no-compression' in req.headers:
+                       if 'Accept-encoding' in req.headers:
+                               del req.headers['Accept-encoding']
+                       del req.headers['Youtubedl-no-compression']
+               return req
+
+       def http_response(self, req, resp):
+               old_resp = resp
+               # gzip
+               if resp.headers.get('Content-encoding', '') == 'gzip':
+                       gz = gzip.GzipFile(fileobj=StringIO.StringIO(resp.read()), mode='r')
+                       resp = self.addinfourl_wrapper(gz, old_resp.headers, old_resp.url, old_resp.code)
+                       resp.msg = old_resp.msg
+               # deflate
+               if resp.headers.get('Content-encoding', '') == 'deflate':
+                       gz = StringIO.StringIO(self.deflate(resp.read()))
+                       resp = self.addinfourl_wrapper(gz, old_resp.headers, old_resp.url, old_resp.code)
+                       resp.msg = old_resp.msg
+               return resp
+