diff --git a/crates/uv-distribution/src/distribution_database.rs b/crates/uv-distribution/src/distribution_database.rs
index e6fd95907..5200fa337 100644
--- a/crates/uv-distribution/src/distribution_database.rs
+++ b/crates/uv-distribution/src/distribution_database.rs
@@ -180,7 +180,19 @@ impl<'a, Context: BuildContext + Send + Sync> DistributionDatabase<'a, Context>
                     .instrument(info_span!("download", wheel = %wheel))
                 };
 
-                let req = self.client.cached_client().uncached().get(url).build()?;
+                let req = self
+                    .client
+                    .cached_client()
+                    .uncached()
+                    .get(url)
+                    .header(
+                        // `reqwest` defaults to accepting compressed responses.
+                        // Specify identity encoding to get consistent .whl downloading
+                        // behavior from servers. ref: https://github.com/pypa/pip/pull/1688
+                        "accept-encoding",
+                        reqwest::header::HeaderValue::from_static("identity"),
+                    )
+                    .build()?;
                 let cache_control = match self.client.connectivity() {
                     Connectivity::Online => CacheControl::from(
                         self.cache
diff --git a/crates/uv-extract/src/stream.rs b/crates/uv-extract/src/stream.rs
index 8d8dfb11a..3754064a7 100644
--- a/crates/uv-extract/src/stream.rs
+++ b/crates/uv-extract/src/stream.rs
@@ -18,7 +18,7 @@ pub async fn unzip<R: tokio::io::AsyncRead + Unpin>(
     target: impl AsRef<Path>,
 ) -> Result<(), Error> {
     let target = target.as_ref();
-    let mut reader = reader.compat();
+    let mut reader = futures::io::BufReader::with_capacity(128 * 1024, reader.compat());
     let mut zip = async_zip::base::read::stream::ZipFileReader::new(&mut reader);
 
     let mut directories = FxHashSet::default();