Hello folks!
I managed to make my brother switch from Gnome 3 to Mate and he's the happiest man on Earth.
Though, after the migration, he found two app indicators in the top panel which cannot be moved, clicked - either with right or left button - removed or whatever; a red one showing number 9 and another, white, with the capital letter A. You can see them here just left of Syncthing.
Just information for users on moving launchers and other items in panel.
Image mentions yours but as you stated your system doesn't have indicators and was comparing to your brothers screenshot.