The only browser that shows the featured ads first in searches is Opera. I have tried it on Safari, Firefox, IE, Chrome, and Lunascape. And I have made sure that the featured ads are to be seen first in the settings, reset it, and so forth. What do I need to do to make this feature work right?
What browser you are using has nothing to do with the backend of sorting listings before sending them to the template and displaying them. Are you sure you set the it in the admin and saved the change? Perhaps a link to your site would help as well.