diff --git a/app/views/refs/_tree.html.haml b/app/views/refs/_tree.html.haml
index 137501eaf1..0d9d2d7541 100644
--- a/app/views/refs/_tree.html.haml
+++ b/app/views/refs/_tree.html.haml
@@ -42,9 +42,9 @@
         .readme
           - if content.name =~ /\.(md|markdown)$/i
             = preserve do
-              = markdown(content.data.force_encoding('UTF-8'))
+              = markdown(content.data.detect_encoding!)
           - else
-            = simple_format(content.data.force_encoding('UTF-8'))
+            = simple_format(content.data.detect_encoding!)
 
 - if params[:path]
   - history_path = tree_file_project_ref_path(@project, @ref, params[:path])
diff --git a/app/views/refs/_tree_file.html.haml b/app/views/refs/_tree_file.html.haml
index 3fcc37331e..608faaa83c 100644
--- a/app/views/refs/_tree_file.html.haml
+++ b/app/views/refs/_tree_file.html.haml
@@ -13,7 +13,7 @@
       #tree-readme-holder
         .readme
           = preserve do
-            = markdown(file.data.force_encoding('UTF-8'))
+            = markdown(file.data.detect_encoding!)
     - else
       .view_file_content
         - unless file.empty?
diff --git a/lib/gitlabhq/encode.rb b/lib/gitlabhq/encode.rb
index 6069f4f90a..e0e52f0a2a 100644
--- a/lib/gitlabhq/encode.rb
+++ b/lib/gitlabhq/encode.rb
@@ -1,3 +1,6 @@
+# Patch Strings to enable detect_encoding! on views
+require 'charlock_holmes/string'
+
 module Gitlabhq
   module Encode 
     extend self