With
devServer: {
		contentBase: path.join(__dirname, 'public'),
		publicPath: '/dist/',
		historyApiFallback: true
	},
webpack reports a deprecation warning then outputs the page url but it either doesn't open or reports about unescaped characters/connection refused error on the page in the browser. About the same happens with
devServer: {
		 proxy: {
		 	'*': path.join(__dirname, 'public')
		 },
		publicPath: '/dist/',
		historyApiFallback: true
	},