I don't know why you would think apple devices are inherently safer. I've had two macbooks and probably seven or eight Windows laptops. The macbooks suffered from swelling batteries, over heating chargers and frayed power cords. The Windows laptops had none of these issues.
Given the age of the laptop, 2014, I would be very surprised if this was the original battery. And, if replaced, surprised if it was not the cheapest option off eBay. OEM batteries are surprisingly difficult to source for many laptops after a few years (sometimes if you don't order it with the laptop upfront, you're sol), not to mention priced 3-5x higher than no-name replacements.
That being said, I have bought a lot of no-names over the years and haven't had even so much as an abnormally hot one yet. More often they just perform at 3/4ish capacity of the new "real" one.
Agreed, same for eBay. The useless rubbish they push is just insane. I now look for OEM from reputable vendors or Anker if they make it for the device.
It would be really interesting to see what each company does to protect the health of batteries. I bet there’s a huge difference between them.