diff --git a/internal/backend/http_transport.go b/internal/backend/http_transport.go
index 09eb3cf16..97fd521e3 100644
--- a/internal/backend/http_transport.go
+++ b/internal/backend/http_transport.go
@@ -89,7 +89,7 @@ func Transport(opts TransportOptions) (http.RoundTripper, error) {
 	if err != nil {
 		panic(err)
 	}
-	if feature.Flag.Enabled(feature.HTTPTimeouts) {
+	if feature.Flag.Enabled(feature.BackendErrorRedesign) {
 		h2.WriteByteTimeout = 120 * time.Second
 		h2.ReadIdleTimeout = 60 * time.Second
 		h2.PingTimeout = 60 * time.Second
@@ -132,7 +132,7 @@ func Transport(opts TransportOptions) (http.RoundTripper, error) {
 	}
 
 	rt := http.RoundTripper(tr)
-	if feature.Flag.Enabled(feature.HTTPTimeouts) {
+	if feature.Flag.Enabled(feature.BackendErrorRedesign) {
 		rt = newWatchdogRoundtripper(rt, 120*time.Second, 128*1024)
 	}
 
diff --git a/internal/feature/registry.go b/internal/feature/registry.go
index b0e4d2ed7..ac4105140 100644
--- a/internal/feature/registry.go
+++ b/internal/feature/registry.go
@@ -5,17 +5,17 @@ var Flag = New()
 
 // flag names are written in kebab-case
 const (
+	BackendErrorRedesign    FlagName = "backend-error-redesign"
 	DeprecateLegacyIndex    FlagName = "deprecate-legacy-index"
 	DeprecateS3LegacyLayout FlagName = "deprecate-s3-legacy-layout"
 	DeviceIDForHardlinks    FlagName = "device-id-for-hardlinks"
-	HTTPTimeouts            FlagName = "http-timeouts"
 )
 
 func init() {
 	Flag.SetFlags(map[FlagName]FlagDesc{
+		BackendErrorRedesign:    {Type: Beta, Description: "enforce timeouts for stuck HTTP requests and use new backend error handling design."},
 		DeprecateLegacyIndex:    {Type: Beta, Description: "disable support for index format used by restic 0.1.0. Use `restic repair index` to update the index if necessary."},
 		DeprecateS3LegacyLayout: {Type: Beta, Description: "disable support for S3 legacy layout used up to restic 0.7.0. Use `RESTIC_FEATURES=deprecate-s3-legacy-layout=false restic migrate s3_layout` to migrate your S3 repository if necessary."},
 		DeviceIDForHardlinks:    {Type: Alpha, Description: "store deviceID only for hardlinks to reduce metadata changes for example when using btrfs subvolumes. Will be removed in a future restic version after repository format 3 is available"},
-		HTTPTimeouts:            {Type: Beta, Description: "enforce timeouts for stuck HTTP requests."},
 	})
 }