Extensions can't, correct but I wanted to bring up a special case regarding this

Isolated web apps a chrome feature for developing apps that run in chromium based on HTML (but tbh only really used in Chromebooks) do support raw TCP sockets so if this was ported to an IWA you could have Firefox on a Chromebook without an external server needed.

No, it is possible with extensions.

Extensions can inject headers, such as Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *, to unblock cross-origin requests. In the Manifest V3 context, however, that might require patching window.fetch and window.XMLHttpRequest.

For example,

  // content.js
  window.fetch = async (...args) => {
    const request = args[0] instanceof Request ? args[0].url : args[0]
    const config = args[1] || {}

    return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
      chrome.runtime.sendMessage({ action: "proxyFetch", request, config }, response => {
        if (response.error) {
          const err = new Error(response.error.message)
          err.name = response.error.name
          err.stack = response.error.stack
          if (response.error.cause) err.cause = response.error.cause
          reject(err)
        } else {
          const base64Data = response.dataUrl.split(",")[1]
          const bytes = Uint8Array.from(atob(base64Data), c => c.charCodeAt(0))
          const contentType = response.headers["content-type"] || "application/octet-stream"
          const blob = new Blob([bytes], { type: contentType })

          const status = response.status
          const statusText = response.statusText
          const headers = new Headers(response.headers)
          const body = status === 204 || status === 205 || status === 304 ? null : blob
          resolve(new Response(body, { status, statusText, headers }))
        }
      })
    })
  }

  // Background.js
  chrome.runtime.onMessage.addListener((message, sender, sendResponse) => {
    if (message.action === "proxyFetch") {
      fetch(message.request, message.config)
        .then(async res => {
          const headers = Object.fromEntries(res.headers.entries())
          const blob = await res.blob()
          const reader = new FileReader()
          reader.onloadend = () =>
            sendResponse({ status: res.status, statusText: res.statusText, headers, dataUrl: reader.result })
          reader.readAsDataURL(blob)
        })
        .catch(err => {
          const { name, message, code, stack } = err
          sendResponse({ error: { name, message, code, stack } })
        })

      // Keeps the message channel open for the async fetch
      return true
    }
  })

> Browsers don't want you to bypass their content enforcement

I for one am happy that browsers dont let any random web page i visit port scan my internal network.

I was reading your landing page at https://developer.puter.com/networking/ and was very confused by how you were achieving the "with no server or proxy" part, until much further down the page:

> "the connection is tunneled over a single WebSocket to a Puter relay"

Come on, it's both a server and a proxy, and it doesn't stop being those things just because you're calling it a relay.

So it's just the three accounts you have now? (Show by @coolelectronics now and 7 months ago [1], show from you/@ent101 2d ago [0], 2025[2,3,4], 2024[5,6,7,8,9,A,B,C,D], 2023[E], @george0812 2022[F])

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48895945

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=coolelectronics

[2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45522061

[3]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44193514

[4]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42675696

[5]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41849494

[6]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41682779

[7]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41360683

[8]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41040761

[9]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40802253

[A]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39829463

[B]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39672886

[C]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39597030

[D]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39036897

[E]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38202220

[F]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31611016