Memory Management & Garbage Collection

Browser developer tools help identify memory leaks primarily through heap snapshot comparison: 1) They allow taking snapshots of the JavaScript heap at different points in time, 2) Comparing snapshots helps identify objects that persist or grow unexpectedly, 3) They provide detailed retention paths showing why objects can't be garbage collected, 4) They offer memory allocation timelines to visualize memory usage patterns, 5) They can identify dominant objects consuming most memory, 6) They allow filtering and searching objects by type or property, 7) They provide allocation profiling to see where objects are being created, 8) Modern tools like Chrome DevTools or Firefox DevTools include specialized memory panels designed specifically for leak detection.