my $cgi;
if (exists $ENV{HTTP_ACCEPT_ENCODING} and
    $ENV{HTTP_ACCEPT_ENCODING} =~ /gzip/i and
    eval { require CGI::Compress::Gzip; 1 } 
    ) {
    $cgi = CGI::Compress::Gzip->new();
} # if
else { # if not, just send plain text
    $cgi = CGI->new();
} # else