@@ -1,6 +1,14 @@
 Changes
 =======
 
+1.24.1 (2018-11-02)
+-------------------
+
+* Remove quadratic behavior within ``GzipDecoder.decompress()`` (Issue #1467)
+
+* Restored functionality of `ciphers` parameter for `create_urllib3_context()`. (Issue #1462)
+
+
 1.24 (2018-10-16)
 -----------------
 
 
@@ -7,6 +7,9 @@ if [[ "$(uname -s)" == 'Darwin' ]]; then
     sw_vers
     brew update || brew update
 
+    # https://github.com/travis-ci/travis-ci/issues/8826
+    brew cask uninstall oclint
+
     brew outdated openssl || brew upgrade openssl
     brew install openssl@1.1
 
 
@@ -7,7 +7,8 @@ tornado==5.0.2
 PySocks==1.6.8
 pkginfo==1.4.2
 pytest-timeout==1.3.1
-pytest==3.6.4
+pytest==3.8.2
 # https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/python-repo-tools/issues/23
 pylint<2.0;python_version<="2.7"
 gcp-devrel-py-tools==0.0.15
+pluggy==0.8.0
@@ -27,7 +27,7 @@
 
 __author__ = 'Andrey Petrov (andrey.petrov@shazow.net)'
 __license__ = 'MIT'
-__version__ = '1.24'
+__version__ = '1.24.1'
 
 __all__ = (
     'HTTPConnectionPool',
 
@@ -69,9 +69,9 @@ def __getattr__(self, name):
         return getattr(self._obj, name)
 
     def decompress(self, data):
-        ret = b''
+        ret = bytearray()
         if self._state == GzipDecoderState.SWALLOW_DATA or not data:
-            return ret
+            return bytes(ret)
         while True:
             try:
                 ret += self._obj.decompress(data)
@@ -81,11 +81,11 @@ def decompress(self, data):
                 self._state = GzipDecoderState.SWALLOW_DATA
                 if previous_state == GzipDecoderState.OTHER_MEMBERS:
                     # Allow trailing garbage acceptable in other gzip clients
-                    return ret
+                    return bytes(ret)
                 raise
             data = self._obj.unused_data
             if not data:
-                return ret
+                return bytes(ret)
             self._state = GzipDecoderState.OTHER_MEMBERS
             self._obj = zlib.decompressobj(16 + zlib.MAX_WBITS)
 
 
@@ -263,6 +263,8 @@ def create_urllib3_context(ssl_version=None, cert_reqs=None,
     """
     context = SSLContext(ssl_version or ssl.PROTOCOL_SSLv23)
 
+    context.set_ciphers(ciphers or DEFAULT_CIPHERS)
+
     # Setting the default here, as we may have no ssl module on import
     cert_reqs = ssl.CERT_REQUIRED if cert_reqs is None else cert_reqs
 
 
@@ -70,3 +70,21 @@ def test_sni_missing_warning_with_ip_addresses(monkeypatch, has_sni, server_host
         assert SNIMissingWarning in warnings
     else:
         assert warn.call_count == 0
+
+
+@pytest.mark.parametrize(
+    ["ciphers", "expected_ciphers"],
+    [(None, ssl_.DEFAULT_CIPHERS),
+     ("ECDH+AESGCM:ECDH+CHACHA20", "ECDH+AESGCM:ECDH+CHACHA20")]
+)
+def test_create_urllib3_context_set_ciphers(monkeypatch, ciphers, expected_ciphers):
+
+    context = mock.create_autospec(ssl_.SSLContext)
+    context.set_ciphers = mock.Mock()
+    context.options = 0
+    monkeypatch.setattr(ssl_, "SSLContext", lambda *_, **__: context)
+
+    assert ssl_.create_urllib3_context(ciphers=ciphers) is context
+
+    assert context.set_ciphers.call_count == 1
+    assert context.set_ciphers.call_args == mock.call(expected_ciphers)