Help with virus popups/spyway alerts...

I was told this was the place to go to get some help...let me say first though that I know little about anything other than the basics when it comes to this stuff...but here is my issue.

I keep getting these boxes popping up in the lower right hand corner that look like the window updates box but they talk about me needing spyware updates and stuff like that. There are 3 or 4 different ones that pop up every couple minutes or so. They aren't from windows. And my desktop wallpaper is some screen now telling me spyware has been detected and to click here to scan.

And I keep getting IE pop-ups...I use Firefox...trying to get me to buy anti virus software.

How can I get rid of this? I ran AVG like someone told me and it identified a virus and gave me the location and name of it but said it's unheal-able. Is there any other way or software to get rid of this problem?

Thanks for any help you could give me....and sorry for the ignorance in advance.