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Squier is a Fender brand and produces Fender designs at lower cost, outside the USA. Production has been in several counties - Japan, Korea, China, and IIRC Indonesia - with quality varying. Usually at the beginning of production, they weren't as good while the worker's skill level was established. Some are very good, others are just cheaply made. The Japanese Squiers are excellent guitars.
Note that there are also several ranges of Squier instruments, for example Squier, Squier Bullet, and Squier Affinity. The full name and model will be on the headstock. If there's a serial number, it may or may not be of assistance in identifying the guitar. The country of manufacture will be marked somewhere on the guitar, unless it's been removed.
In many cases you can, yes, significantly improve the quality by replacing specific hardware, notably electronics (starting with the output jack).
The tuners vary. Again, some of the original tuners are very good, others aren't so good. You are the one who can tell since you have the guitar! There may be absolutely no need to change the tuners.
Test by plucking the strings one at a time, and turn the tuner button (up and down). If the pitch changes smoothly with no backlash as you change direction, the tuner is fine. The caveat, of course, is that if you hear pinging noises and the note jumps in pitch, the string is binding in the nut. That's easily fixed, sometimes simply with pencil lead, but has nothing to do with the tuner. Note that this test should be performed with *any* tuner set of any brand, as they are all susceptible to quality variations.
HTH
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