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Google Play on the phone has for long been showing me reviews for the country I reside, which many times aren't really helpful, or sometimes there is simply no review at all to show, for my country.

I used to have a workaround which is to go on the browser, and there it was showing me all reviews.

However, just recently, they completely updated the Google Play interface on the browser too, and the Reviews now appear to behave the same way as in the phone app.

I can't really understand what's the problem or showing ALL reviews, even if they prioritized my country's reviews and show the rest after, but no... they have to completely HIDE many reviews that could be helpful to me...

Is there a way I can force showing all reviews for an app?

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3 Answers 3

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On the browser, you still can target specific language for reviews by appending to the URL in the address bar &hl=<languagecode> like &hl=en for instance

If that doesn't work, try gl=<countrycode> instead of hl, as detailed in How to explore web-based Google Play in another country?

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  • Thank you! It really helped my. I had hl paramete set to my country. And nobody is using this app here. Setting it to hl=en solved the issue!
    – Bogdan Mart
    Commented Aug 17, 2023 at 9:57
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No, you can't. Google's policy changed from Nov 21 and AFAIK, there isn't a workaround (VPN doesn't help). Reviews are shown depending on the place you registered (see last section of answer)

Making Ratings and Reviews better for users and developers gives the logic:

We’ve heard from both Play Store users and developers that ratings and reviews could be more helpful. This is especially true when ratings from one area unfairly impact another — like when a bug that only impacted a single country negatively affects the app’s rating everywhere; or when positive improvements in a tablet experience are overlooked because of the number of users on phones. So we’re starting a multi-quarter program of improvements to make ratings more personalized and indicative of the experience each individual user can expect, and to make them easier to navigate and use for developers

(Emphasis supplied)

That’s why, starting in November 2021, we’re going to change the ratings that individual users see based on where they’re registered, and later in the year what device they’re using.

Ways to overcome this limitation, I can think of a) developer gives you access to developer play console b) Using sensor tower or some such service and paying for it. Both are not options for an average user

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Open an incognito or private tab and view the store without signing in. On my Android phone this works in Firefox but not Edge or Chrome; on my PC it works in any browser.

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