Malwarebytes Anti-Rootkit BETA is an early look at a new tool which aims to find and eliminate rootkits from your PC.

The program is very straightforward in operation. There's no installation, just unzip the download, follow the simple wizard and it'll walk you through the process of scanning your PC and (if necessary) cleaning up any malware.

Handily, you also get a tool which aims to fix the damage sometimes done by malware to your settings. If you've lost internet access, for instance, or Windows Update/ the Windows Firewall have stopped working then this may be able to help.(There are more instructions on the Malwarebytes site.)

The end result is a tool which is considerably more user-friendly than many other rootkit detectors. There's no technical jargon here, for instance. And while some of the competition push the technical limits to the extent that just running them can blue-screen some PCs, Malwarebytes Anti-Rootkit ran on our system just like any other antivirus program.

This is a beta, though. It raised some false alarms during the detection process on our test PC, and if there are problems during cleanup then it could seriously harm your system.

If you're an experienced Windows user, then, maybe a Malwarebytes fan who wants to keep up with what they're doing, then by all means download this and take a look. But everyone else should stay away until the finished product is available.