Generally when researching something I'll pick a number of search terms, and for each, I'll actually open a few of the hits (in a new tab each time). Of those hits, most get closed right away once I actually look at them and see they're useless, of the rest, I might read a few, or follow the most relevant seeming links. (But usually close some large number of them)

Wash rinse repeat until I'm actually left with a very small set of things that are pertinent to the task at hand.

(This process does seem to leak slightly. I have to do a separate garbage collection pass once in a while.)