I think you need root permissions to start a network service on port 80 on Windows. There is a security risk here which was addressed in a fairly recent Chrome

I think you need root permissions to start a network service on port 80 on Windows. There is a security risk here which was addressed in a fairly recent Chrome release that local addresses need a respective CORS rule. At least I believe so. Disadvantage with the Windows behavior is that a webservice running on said port has elevated permissions and if you surf the web with the same machine, a script inserted into a site could launch attacks against it. Of course the site itself could be malicious, in that case the CORS rule wouldn't do much. Of course you are correct, running directly on port 80 might just be a bad idea, but for development purposes I might do that.