How to Disable Same Origin Policy in Chrome?

While working on web development projects, you might encounter a “CORS policy” (Cross-Origin Resource Sharing Policy) error on Chrome. This happens due to the Same-Origin Policy in short called SOP. It is a security feature of Chrome designed to block unauthorized requests coming over your server to get access to its resources. It is an important protection mechanism. But, sometimes there is a need to disable it for development and testing purposes temporarily.

In this guide, we will explore What SOP is, why Chrome enforces it, and how you can disable the Same-Origin Policy in Chrome.

Table of Contents:

• What is the Same-Origin Policy (SOP)?
• Why Would You Disable Same-Origin Policy?
• Risks of Disabling SOP
• How to Disable Same-Origin Policy in Chrome
  • Method 1: Using Chrome Flags (Command-Line Option)
    • For Windows:
    • For macOS:
    • For Linux (Ubuntu):
  • Method 2: Using a Chrome Extensions
  • Method 3: Modifying Response Header via using Middlewares
• Conclusion

What is the Same-Origin Policy (SOP)?

The Same-Origin Policy is a security feature of web browsers that prevents web pages from making requests to different origins. In simple words, whenever you work on full-stack web development projects, it is very common to get a CORS error and because of this error, your frontend is not able to get resources from the backend.

Why Would You Disable Same-Origin Policy?

SOP is essential for security because it blocks the other origins from getting the resources of your server. However, there are various reasons why developers might need to disable it.

• Developing Browser-Based Applications: full-stack web development projects require fetching resources from various sources.
• Testing API calls locally: helpful in testing API calls without setting up CORS headers on the server.

Risks of Disabling SOP

Before Knowing about multiple methods for disabling the same-origin policy in Chrome it’s important to understand the security risk with disabling the Same-Origin Policy on Chrome.

• Increased vulnerability to cross-site scripting (XSS) and cross-site forgery (CSRF) attacks.
• Every domain has access to your sensitive data. Hackers might steal your data or execute some malicious code.

How to Disable Same-Origin Policy in Chrome

There are various ways to disable the same-origin Policy in Chrome. Here are some of the methods:

Method 1: Using Chrome Flags (Command-Line Option)

For removing the Same-Origin Policy through Command-Line you can launch Chrome with the –disable-web-security flag to bypass SOP.

For Windows

Here are the steps to disable SOP in Chrome for Windows users:

1. Close all the running Chrome tabs and windows.
2. Open Command Prompt and run the following command:

chrome.exe --disable-web-security --user-data-dir="C:\chrome-dev"

Here,

• chrome.exe: Opens the Chrome Browser.
• –disable-web-security: Disables the Same-Origin Policy (SOP).
• –user-data-dir=”C:\chrome-dev”: This flag is required because Chrome didn’t allow you to disable this feature for the default user profile because of security reasons C:\chrome-dev is a separate user directory created specifically for running Chrome with disabled web security.

For macOS

Here are the steps to disable SOP in Chrome for MAC users:

1. Close all the running Chrome tabs and windows.
2. Open Terminal by searching for it in the spotlight.
3. Run the following command to launch Chrome with disabled web security:

open -n -a /Applications/Google\ Chrome.app --args --user-data-dir="/tmp/chrome_dev" --disable-web-security

For Linux (Ubuntu)

Here are the steps to disable SOP in Chrome for MAC users:

1. Close all the running Chrome tabs and windows.
2. Run the following command in the terminal

google-chrome --disable-web-security --user-data-dir="/tmp/chrome_dev"

Method 2: Using a Chrome Extension

Instead of disabling web security entirely, you can use a Chrome extension like Allow CORS: Access-Control-Allow-Origin to enable cross-origin requests from other servers and remove CORS errors. This is a slightly safer alternative than the first method.

Method 3: Modifying Response Header via using Middlewares

It is the recommended and more secure approach to disable SOP in Chrome. In this technique, you can configure the server by adding middleware to it.

Example:

If your server is created with the use of Node.js then to remove the CORS error you can first install cors package then you can write the following lines of code.

const express = require('express');
const cors = require('cors');
const app = express();
// CORS enabled for all routes
app.use(cors());
app.get('/', (req, res) => {
    res.send('CORS is enabled!');
});
app.listen(3000, () => {
    console.log('Server running on port 3000');
});

Explanation: In the above code, a middleware (cors) is used that can allow all origins to get data or resources directly from the backend. You can configure it and allow some domains or ports to access resources from the backend server.

Conclusion

The Same-Origin Policy in Chrome is an important security measure that prevents unauthorized cross-site requests. While disabling SOP can be useful for testing and development. At the same time, it should also cause some potential cause to your resources. Thus the best approach is to enable CORS on the server.

But, if you need to disable SOP, run the –disable-web-security flag on a new Chrome profile to avoid risks. Turn on security settings after completing your work to avoid exposing your browser to potential security risks.

How to Disable Same Origin Policy in Chrome – FAQs