#1. Scan website links for any viruses, spyware, adware or anything malicious before visiting it
AVG Free does this (
http://free.avg.com/). Hopefully Avast! will do so soon. *UPDATE- I should have said that AVG's Link Scanner Toolbar does this, if you have the toolbar enabled in firefox or IE, it puts a green star next to every link on a google search. It scans the page that the link points to, and shows that it is clean. Also, as other posters have said, Avast will scan the pages too.*
#2. Clean up junk files and files left behind from programs uninstalled off your computer
Usually by uninstalling a program via "Add / Remove Programs" within the control panel, it will do this for you. If there are files that are still in use, they will probably be removed after a reboot.
However, I do recommend Cleanup! for windows: (
http://www.stevengould.org/index.php?Itemid=69&id=15&option=com_content&task=view)
and CCleaner: (
http://www.ccleaner.com/) to get rid of unwanted temporary files, temporary internet files, and cookies, etc.
Also, increasing computer performance can be as easy as defragging your hard drive by using the built-in windows defrag, or a third-party such as Auslogic's Disk Defrag (
http://www.auslogics.com/en/software/disk-defrag/download) or *not free* Diskeeper (
http://www.diskeeper.com/) or by adding memory.
Also, removing quicktime tray icon, windows desktop search, yahoo/google,etc. toolbars from your browser, and everything else that doesn't need to run constantly from your system tray etc. will make windows start and run faster.