After 4,420 days the oldest torrent in the world is still being shared actively

A torrent file of the ASCII version of 1999 movie The Matrix, which was created and first circulated more than 12 years ago, is known to be the oldest torrent, and is still actively shared. This torrent is still being downloaded several times a week, although exact numbers are unavailable.

The torrent file of the The Matrix's ASCII render was originally created 20 December 2003, which means that today (25 January 2016) it has been available for 4,420 days. Despite the fact that the original hosting site is no longer online, even now it has eight active seeders. In November 2005, with only one seeder, the ASCII render had already existed for 696 days with around 5,000 downloads. The science-fiction action movie was released in 1999.

The ASCII version comes with a DVD cover and insert. The torrent contains a disclaimer saying, "This work is a parody. As such I do not believe that this DVD has any possibility of competing with the original in any market. It is not for sale." Although there is no accurate download number available, TorrentFreak claims that it has been downloaded by tens of thousands of people worldwide.

Those who have downloaded the DVD have given positive reviews – arguably those ones who were already aware of the low quality – whereas some were quite disappointed with the DVD. "Dude, tell me what to do with this Matrix ASCII, cause the picture is all green n stuff, can't even see what's going on. And, its in 4 VOB files, but why?" questioned one downloader.