Which technique is used to prevent memory leaks in JavaScript?

Garbage collection is a memory management technique used in JavaScript to automatically reclaim memory that is no longer needed by the program. When objects are created in JavaScript, they occupy certain memory space, and if these objects are not needed anymore—meaning there are no references to them—garbage collection identifies these unreferenced objects and frees up the allocated memory.

This automatic process helps to prevent memory leaks, which occur when memory that is no longer in use is not released back to the system. If memory leaks are not addressed, they can lead to performance issues or application crashes by exhausting the available memory over time. The JavaScript engine typically runs the garbage collector periodically to identify and clean up these unreferenced objects, thereby maintaining optimal memory usage.

The other techniques mentioned, such as variable hoisting, object cloning, and encapsulation, do not directly address memory management or the prevention of memory leaks. Variable hoisting is a behavior related to the scope and declaration of variables. Object cloning involves duplicating objects and managing their states rather than memory reclamation. Encapsulation is a principle of bundling data and methods that operate on the data, focused more on code organization and protection of data integrity than memory management.