The Panel on the top of the screen is giving me a running commentary on any tab I have active in my web browser.
Is there a way to make it stop giving a running commentary on whichever browser tab I have active? ... or
Is there a way to hide this menu bar?
Alternatively - If I could add the icons on the top right (circled in green in my screenshot) to the taskbar thing that would be ideal.
Is there an alternative desktop were this isn't an issue?
Is there a way to make it stop giving a running commentary on whichever browser tab I have active?
Yes: Go to System Settings -> Appearance -> Behaviour and choose Menus Visibility -> Always displayed. Then, the menu will be displayed instead of the title.
Is there a way to hide this menu bar?
No, not in Unity
If I could add the icons on the top right (circled in green in my screengrab) to the taskbar thing that would be ideal.
If you mean the Launcher, no, this is not possible.
Is there an alternative desktop were this isn't an issue?
It's interesting that what is an issue for you is the one thing that keeps me from using any other desktop. Yes, almost any other Desktop does not have the title bar/menu integrated, e.g. KDE or Gnome. In the comments Gnome Classic was named.
As far as I know, there is no way to auto hide the top bar/panel. Although you can make it transparent which may help? or maybe not! But the way you do that is go into the ubuntu software centre and type into the search bar "Unity Tweak Tool". alternatively you can get it through the terminal by typing: $ sudo apt-get install unity-tweak-tool
in the tweak tool you'll find the option to change the transparency. I hope this helps? :/ good luck!
