No matter the major brand, I've had them all leak to varying degrees, damaging or outright destroying things from flashlights, remotes, test equipment, you name it. For AA, AAA and 9 volt applications, I will use lithium primary cells (Energizer Advanced or Ultimate brand) for items that get intermittent use yet still need to be ready for immediate use. For things like radios, electronics and other stuff that gets regular use, I use Eneloop or similar low self-discharge NiMH cells which are far less prone to sudden leakage, but aren't immune. Then there are some items that don't like the slightly lower voltage of the NiMH cells, so those tend to get regular alkalines. There simply isn't any sure way to predict if a battery will leak, in most of my cases, the battery is still putting out decent voltage when it began to leak, these aren't batteries that have long died and were forgotten. I tossed out over a dozen fairly new Duracell Quantum AA cells that I had put into the smoke detectors not long ago, one began chirping the low battery warning in about 5 months, when I checked, one of the three cells had begun leaking badly. I checked all the detectors, and found another cell leaking. Rather than risking damage, I replaced all the cells with a different brand.
I have an ancient Canon pocket calculator i used in middle and high school, it now resides in my basement workshop toolbox. It still has the same two steel-clad Duracells I put in the calculator sometime around 1980-82. They are still going strong. So is that old calculator. It gets used on average once a month or so. Those batteries might outlast me.
If you can loosen a tail cap so he light won't come on meaning the circuit is open, it would help keep this from happening. If you really want to keep it from happening on AAA and AA at least, use lithium batteries since they won't leak like alkalines. Or switch to rechargeables since they won't leak either.
