How can I disable background windows indicator in the Dock?

Is there a way to disable this? Next to the trash can, these little icons pop up showing me which windows I have open in the background.

• I had not seen this on my past Macbook, and I'm not a fan of how it looks :(
• I also think it's redundant because I can just click to open applications from the dock and I can see what applications are open with the dot indicator.
• I have already disabled "Show recent applications in Dock" in settings, which worked for that purpose, but doesn't do anything to change the active applications indicators.

A right click only gives me the option to open. Is there any fix for this?