“Cross origin requests are only supported for HTTP.” error when loading a local file

Just to be explicit – Yes, the error is saying you cannot point your browser directly at file://some/path/some.html

Here are some options to quickly spin up a local web server to let your browser render local files

Python 2

If you have Python installed…

1. Change directory into the folder where your file some.html or file(s) exist using the command cd /path/to/your/folder

2. Start up a Python web server using the command python -m SimpleHTTPServer

This will start a web server to host your entire directory listing at http://localhost:8000

3. You can use a custom port python -m SimpleHTTPServer 9000 giving you link: http://localhost:9000

This approach is built in to any Python installation.

Python 3

Do the same steps, but use the following command instead python3 -m http.server

Node.js

Alternatively, if you demand a more responsive setup and already use nodejs…

1. Install http-server by typing npm install -g http-server

2. Change into your working directory, where yoursome.html lives

3. Start your http server by issuing http-server -c-1

This spins up a Node.js httpd which serves the files in your directory as static files accessible from http://localhost:8080

Ruby

If your preferred language is Ruby … the Ruby Gods say this works as well:

ruby -run -e httpd . -p 8080

PHP

Of course PHP also has its solution.

php -S localhost:8000