The short answer is that NAT (Network Address Translation) should be turned on if you want to use a router to connect multiple devices to the internet. However, there are some potential downsides to using NAT, which we'll explore in this article.
NAT essentially allows a single device, like a router, to act as an intermediary between multiple devices on a local network and the wider internet. This has the effect of hiding the individual IP addresses of devices on the local network behind a single IP address assigned to the router.
There are several benefits to using NAT:
It can help improve security by making it more difficult for malicious actors to target specific devices on your network.
It can conserve IP addresses because only one IP address is required for all of the devices on the network. This is especially helpful if you're operating on a limited number of IP addresses or if you want to connect more devices than there are available IP addresses.
It can simplify configuration of applications and services that need to communicate with specific devices on your network because they only need to be configured with the router's IP address rather than each individual device's IP address.
NAT also has some potential drawbacks: