Do I need to keep a reference to preloaded images or can they be garbage collected?
<p>Every example of image preloaders that I find in books or online contains some form of a <code>cache</code> array of all the preloaded images.</p>

<p>I've created a <a href="http://jsfiddle.net/7hapx/" rel="nofollow">DEMO page</a> that if you open the console, you can clearly see it preloads images even if they get garbage collected.</p>

<p>Is there any reason why all the other preloaders keep a reference to the preloaded images, or is it unnecessary?</p>
