Short Take: Microsoft gains in ratings

Microsoft surged ahead in the latest PC-Meter Sweeps, a quarterly ranking of top Web sites among U.S. home PC users. In the fourth quarter of 1996, Microsoft moved to fifth place from eleventh; rival Netscape dropped from first place to third. AOL regained first place in the ratings, a position it had held in the first and second quarter surveys. Yahoo and WebCrawler came in second and fourth place, respectively. The ratings are based on measurements of Web use by 10,000 U.S. households.