In a recent update to gnome-terminal, X (close) buttons have appeared on
every tab. There appears to be no way to switch them off. This is a bug,
because (in increasing order of annoyance) :-

  (a) it's a waste of precious space in the tab; less title can be displayed

  (b) do you really close terminals so often that you need a button to do it?
  What exactly are you doing, opening a terminal, typing one command and
  then closing it again?

  (c) there are a million other ways of closing a terminal. My favourite
  is to explicitly type 'exit' or 'logout' or ^D, but you could also select
  close from the menu. All of these are deliberate actions, you can't
  do them accidentally, unlike clicking a button.

  (d) closing a terminal tab should *not* be a one-click operation,
  because you are not asked for confirmation and it's not possible
  to resume or recover what was on the screen if you accidentally
  close it.

  (e) having the close button *on the tab*, where I have to click to
  *select* the tab, is an accident waiting to happen. It didn't have to
  wait very long to happen to me, I accidentally closed an important
  tab within about 15 minutes of this "feature" appearing.

*Please* get rid of them or let me switch them off!

I consider this feature to be a bug which severely affects the usability
of the program. In fact I will have to look for a different tabbed terminal
program to use until this is resolved, because the risk of critical
data loss is too great.

Ben