use IO::Compress::Gzip qw( gzip $GzipError );
use IO::Uncompress::Gunzip qw(gunzip $GunzipError );

my ( $uncompresedHTML, $compressedHTML );
. . .
gzip \$uncompressedHTML => \$compresedHTML;
. . .
gunzip \$compressedHTML => \$uncompresedHTML;