diff --git a/http.c b/http.c
index 96d84bbed3..8be75b267f 100644
--- a/http.c
+++ b/http.c
@@ -836,8 +836,14 @@ static CURL *get_curl_handle(void)
 		}
 	}
 
-	if (curl_http_proxy) {
-		curl_easy_setopt(result, CURLOPT_PROXY, curl_http_proxy);
+	if (curl_http_proxy && curl_http_proxy[0] == '\0') {
+		/*
+		 * Handle case with the empty http.proxy value here to keep
+		 * common code clean.
+		 * NB: empty option disables proxying at all.
+		 */
+		curl_easy_setopt(result, CURLOPT_PROXY, "");
+	} else if (curl_http_proxy) {
 #if LIBCURL_VERSION_NUM >= 0x071800
 		if (starts_with(curl_http_proxy, "socks5h"))
 			curl_easy_setopt(result,