Bless all browsers, large and small. Bless them one and all. Everyone’s favorite Norwegian software simians have not been overwhelmed by the “excitement and media coverage” of the Barracuda launch. But, there is news here beyond their disavowal of hype.

Opera Software has announced the immediate availability of Opera 11.1 beta (change log), which has been codenamed “Barracuda.” Yeah, it’s just a point release, but there are nevertheless some fairly hefty new features in this update with airs:

• Opera Presto 2.8 rendering engine

• URL Filter API for Opera extensions

• WebP image format now supported

• Improved Declarative UI functionality

• Subtle animations, messages added to improve feature discovery

That said, Opera 11.1 Barracuda — I wonder if the litigious Wilson sisters (iTunes) will take exception — does feel snappier. Further, this latest release also offers better HTML5 support, boosting Opera’s benchmark score from 223 to 244 — just ahead of Safari 5.0.4 but well shy of the marks posted by Chrome and WebKit.

And, the addition of WebP image format support — WebM arrived with v10.6 — matters to open source religionists.

Nevertheless, competition in the browser space is a good thing and you should check out the fruits of their labor by downloading your very own copy of Opera 11.1 beta Barracuda here (13.3MB).