Chrome cannot connect to http://localhost:8080 but http://127.0.0.1:8080 works

This question is similar to the one here, but that question is 18 months old and I have more specific information.

I am running a node.js development server on my local PC (Windows 7), and it is set to listen on localhost:8080.

Using IE11 or Firefox, I can successfully connect to both http://localhost:8080 and http://127.0.0.1:8080

Using Chrome (version 58), I can successfully connect to http://127.0.0.1:8080, but I can't connect to http://localhost:8080 - it gives me ERR_CONNECTION_RESET.

However, if I configure the node server to a different port, say 8081 or 8888, then Chrome can happily connect using localhost as well. So it is not a name resolution problem, but specific to choice of port number.

So what is special in Chrome about localhost when using port 8080?

via Tony Mountifield