Deadly CORS when http://localhost is the origin

Chrome does not support localhost for CORS requests (a bug opened in 2010, marked WontFix in 2014).

To get around this you can use a domain like lvh.me (which points at 127.0.0.1 just like localhost) or start chrome with the --disable-web-security flag (assuming you're just testing).

Per @Beau's answer, Chrome does not support localhost CORS requests, and there is unlikely any change in this direction.

I use the Allow-Control-Allow-Origin: * Chrome Extension to go around this issue. The extension will add the necessary HTTP Headers for CORS:

Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *
Access-Control-Allow-Methods: "GET, PUT, POST, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS"
Access-Control-Expose-Headers: <you can add values here>

The source code is published on Github.

Note that the extension filter all URLs by default. This may break some websites (for example: Dropbox). I have changed it to filter only localhost URLs with the following URL filter

*://localhost:*/*

The real problem is that if we set -Allow- for all request (OPTIONS & POST), Chrome will cancel it. The following code works for me with POST to LocalHost with Chrome

<?php
if (isset($_SERVER['HTTP_ORIGIN'])) {
    //header("Access-Control-Allow-Origin: {$_SERVER['HTTP_ORIGIN']}");
    header("Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *");
    header('Access-Control-Allow-Credentials: true');    
    header("Access-Control-Allow-Methods: GET, POST, OPTIONS"); 
}   
if ($_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'] == 'OPTIONS') {
    if (isset($_SERVER['HTTP_ACCESS_CONTROL_REQUEST_METHOD']))
        header("Access-Control-Allow-Methods: GET, POST, OPTIONS");         
    if (isset($_SERVER['HTTP_ACCESS_CONTROL_REQUEST_HEADERS']))
        header("Access-Control-Allow-Headers:{$_SERVER['HTTP_ACCESS_CONTROL_REQUEST_HEADERS']}");

    exit(0);
} 
?>