Question: What is it? How did I get it? I am assuming is spyware/malware and I should get rid of it.

![alt text](https://i.stack.imgur.com/RZRRG.jpg)

Answer: 
It's Google Reader Notifier. The latest version has spam.

[Source: Beware! Google Reader Notifier for Firefox Is Now Crapware](http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/2585/beware-google-reader-notifier-for-firefox-is-now-crapware/) (also contains instructions on how to remove it)
My first guess is that this is an addon. Go to Tools > Add-Ons and look for any add-ons that you don't want installed. Try disabling any suspicious add-ons, then restarting to see if it fixes the problem. If it does, then you can go back to the add-ons window and uninstall that one. Otherwise, you can reenable the add-on.

If you can be sure that it's not an add-on, you may have a bad copy of Firefox. Firefox is open source, so it's entirely possible that you downloaded a modified version from somewhere on the web. You may wish to delete your copy of Firefox and download a sure-to-be-valid copy from <http://www.getfirefox.com>. If you wish, you can make a backup of your firefox profile, to easily make your new copy seem like your old one (hopefully without the ad!). You can learn about this at [support.mozilla.com/kb/Profiles](http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Profiles).