In that flashlight and with that charger, a protected is not necessary.
Protected are more expensive than common ones.
Protected ones are no better than common ones.
Under a protection they can put a fake battery.
Buy a good brand from a trusted supplier.
Good brands … Sanyo, Panasonic, Samsung, LG, Sony …
It is not recommended, with some exceptions, ebay or aliexpress.
In Europe, I never bought but it has a good reputation, nkon.nl
Find one that is accessible to you and publish the link, we will help you.
Some batteries I’m looking at:
Sanyo NCR18650GA, Panasonic NCR18650B, Sony US18650 VTC6
A couple of Samsung (25R, 30Q) were also among my choices but after so many reports about fake ones, I’m afraid to buy them. I think I’ll go for the Sanyo.
There’s another online store who claims that their batteries are 100% genuine and they’re providing (they say so) certification about it. Such a thing does exist? A battery genuineness certificate? The funny thing is that I found a customer’s review saying he bought a fake 30Q from this store, lol…
I contacted him and asked him about that “certification”. He sent me a document which contains detailed technical specifications and guidelines about safe use, charging, storage of the battery. A user’s manual actually, which doesn’t prove in any way the authenticity of the product.
I’ve bought a couple of battery orders from illumn in the past year, the last one a few months ago. Shipping was always around $15 or $16 to Canada. Have they recently jacked up the price that much? If so, it’s probably not worth buying there again. That $2 surplus per cell (I usually order 8 cells), suddenly jumps to $5 per cell!