On Tuesday, Google released  a major new version of the Chrome browser to its stable channel, available for Windows, the Mac and Linux. A new tab synchronization feature in the new version 19 of the browser is drawing some buzz, and you can watch how this feature works here. However, it's also notable that version 19 fixes 20 significant bugs, improving the browser's security. Google remains focused on security with Chrome, because that's the key to winning over IT departments at businesses, many of which favor market-leading Internet Explorer from Microsoft.

Over the weekend, The Hill reported that U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee members will look into claims from Mozilla that Microsoft is weilding monopoly power by making it difficult for non-Microsoft browsers to to run efficiently on Windows devices with ARM processors. Many mobile phones use ARM processors, so the dispute is similar to the browser-related disputes that Microsoft has gotten into in the past, except updated to apply to phone platforms. If The Hill's report is correct, Microsoft may need to change its practices immediately.

Although the manuals and documentation you get with many open source applications and platforms can be beyond underwhelming, the good news is that there are a lot of free, online books on open source topics available. We round these up on a regular basis here at OStatic, and in this post you'll find our latest updated collection of online books that you can get comfortable with quickly. They introduce essential concepts for getting started with Linux, Firefox, Blender (3D graphics and animation), GIMP (graphics), and much more.