The "user hostile" tab design change was the addition of a space of a few pixels between the tabs and address bar: https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/1/22463321/firefox-design-re...

If they had just thickened the continuous bar connected to the tab a few pixels I probably wont even have noticed. Instead introducing a gap between the tab and its page completely changes its look making it seem like its floating separately and the tabs are independent buttons. But the point is either of these makes no sense at all. What even was the point of this weird change from the perfectly functional and normal looking tabs before?

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1339535 https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1386107

Look what an unholy mess the new change to audio playing status has caused.

To summarize, in compact mode you will get the audio playing icon on a tab but it will hide the favicon in that case.

In normal mode, and only if you have a small number of tabs, you will find a tiny 'PLAYING' text instead. If you hover over it, you will find the playing icon...which will have hidden the favicon then.

UX geniuses with too much time on their hands.