cross-origin HTTP request

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https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Access_control_CORS

A resource makes a cross-origin HTTP request when it requests a resource from a different domain, or port than the one which the first resource itself serves. For example, an HTML page served from http://domain-a.com makes an <img> src request for http://domain-b.com/image.jpg. Many pages on the web today load resources like CSS stylesheets, images and scripts from separate domains.

For security reasons, browsers restrict cross-origin HTTP requests initiated from within scripts. For example, XMLHttpRequest and Fetch follow the same-origin policy. So, a web application using XMLHttpRequest or Fetch could only make HTTP requests to its own domain. To improve web applications, developers asked browser vendors to allow cross-domain requests.

The Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) mechanism gives web servers cross-domain access controls, which enable secure cross-domain data transfers. Modern browsers use CORS in an API container - such as XMLHttpRequest or Fetch - to mitigate risks of cross-origin HTTP requests.

This article is for web administrators, server developers, and front-end developers. Modern browsers handle the client-side components of cross-origin sharing, including headers and policy enforcement. But this new standard means servers have to handle new request and response headers. Another article for server developers discussing cross-origin sharing from a server perspective (with PHP code snippets) is supplementary reading.