Removing event listeners is a crucial part of managing browser events efficiently in JavaScript. When you add an event listener to a DOM element using addEventListener, it remains active until you explicitly remove it or the element itself is destroyed. If you do not remove event listeners that are no longer needed, your application can suffer from memory leaks or unexpected behavior, especially in dynamic interfaces where elements are frequently created and removed.

To remove an event listener, you use the removeEventListener method. This method requires you to specify the same event type and, most importantly, the exact same function reference that was originally used with addEventListener. If you use a different function or an anonymous function, the event listener will not be removed, and the handler will continue to respond to events.

Using the same function reference is vital because JavaScript compares function objects by reference, not by value. If you pass a new or anonymous function to removeEventListener, it will not match the function originally registered, and the removal will fail.