diff --git a/gettingstarted/settings.py b/gettingstarted/settings.py
index 55566786f..d6df80f99 100644
--- a/gettingstarted/settings.py
+++ b/gettingstarted/settings.py
@@ -196,7 +196,7 @@
 STATIC_URL = "static/"
 
 STORAGES = {
-    # Enable WhiteNoise's GZip and Brotli compression of static assets:
+    # Enable WhiteNoise's GZip (and Brotli, if installed) compression of static assets:
     # https://whitenoise.readthedocs.io/en/latest/django.html#add-compression-and-caching-support
     "staticfiles": {
         "BACKEND": "whitenoise.storage.CompressedManifestStaticFilesStorage",
diff --git a/requirements.txt b/requirements.txt
index 7ce9e89f3..f8c3df4f4 100644
--- a/requirements.txt
+++ b/requirements.txt
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 django>=5.2,<5.3
 gunicorn>=23,<24
 dj-database-url>=2,<3
-whitenoise[brotli]>=6,<7
+whitenoise>=6,<7
 
 # Uncomment these lines to use a Postgres database. Both are needed, since in production
 # (which uses Linux) we want to install from source, so that security updates from the